A Durham County judge ruled to permit former men's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler to drop his previous suit against the University and pursue slander charges instead of breach of contract Thursday.
Pressler, who was forced to resign when rape allegations arose against the lacrosse team in the spring of 2006, filed papers with the Durham County Superior Court in October, claiming that the terms of his March 2007 legal settlement with the University were violated. Specifically, the suit cited allegedly defamatory remarks made by John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, to the press.
On the eve of the hearing regarding the settlement, however, Pressler and his lawyers petitioned for the claims in the suit be changed to slander, a request granted Thursday by Judge Orlando Hudson. Lawyers for Pressler will now begin again with a slander suit.
"For Mike Pressler, this has always been about getting to the truth," said Jay Trehy, a lawyer for Pressler. "We want to get to the truth, we want to proceed on these slander claims."
Slander is legally defined as an unfair or false statement made about a person that is published which puts him in a false light, said Professor James Coleman of the School of Law.
Lawyers for Duke argued that any aspect of Pressler's involuntary termination should be settled by arbitration-a method of dispute resolution outside the courts in which all parties choose representatives to come to an agreement for them.
All Duke employees agree to settle conflicts through arbitration when they are hired, said Joe Simpson, a lawyer for Duke.
"This little procedural maneuver is just a delay in tactics to avoid the day of reckoning," he said. "You have to arbitrate any dispute you have with the University.... That's the remedy."
Arbitration is more desirable for the University because it is private, less expensive and less time-consuming than judicial proceedings, Coleman said.
"[With arbitration,] you're able to cut away a lot of issues that arise in litigation and focus on what the real dispute is," he said. "The proceedings are truncated... so the process may or may not include the basis for their award."
Legal counsel for Pressler, however, claimed the arbitration agreement is not valid for the slander suit.
"Those slanderous comments were made after Coach Pressler was terminated, after the confidential agreement was filed, while he was a private citizen," said Don Strickland, one of Pressler's attorneys. "For those reasons, the arbitration agreement would not apply."
Specifically, the lawsuit refers to remarks made by Burness to Newsday April 9, 2007, and to The Associated Press June 7, 2007, comparing him to John Danowski, who took over as head lacrosse coach July 2006.
"One of the things we certainly have come to understand in this case is that the coaches, in general, in each of our sports are responsible for the behavior of their teams," Burness told Newsday. "Danowski is night and day.... As [President Richard Brodhead] said, 'This guy's a mensch. This guy gets it.'"
If the case does go through judicial litigation, the burden of proof will fall on Pressler and his counsel to prove Burness' comments amounted to slander, Coleman said.
"In a situation like this... the standard for proven slander would be pretty high," he said.
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